Toxic Sludge Cleanup

Sziastok!

Last week was really crazy! We went to Devecser to shovel toxic sludge on Monday and on Saturday! It has been a really interesting experience. An especially cool thing is that people in other cities have actually come up to the missionaries on the street and thanked them for our help in Devecser! So hopefully this event will let people see that we are actually normal, kind people.

On Saturday we had a small group of about fifteen people – which was perfect because we could stay in one group – and we were sent to an auto repair shop to work. There were about ten firefighters and ten other people from another group that were there too. We worked for seven hours straight! The shop owner’s house was right next to the shop. The family was pretty wealthy so they had LOTS of stuff. They had a storage garage that was completely full of furniture and clothes and we had to throw EVERYTHING away. Anything that you can imagine that could be in a house was covered in sludge. We just threw everything into piles so that a bulldozer could come and put it into a large container.

Helping with the cleanup is actually really fun work, kind of like playing in mud – but you don’t want the mud to touch you. It’s fun, that is, until you remember that everything you see and touch and throw away used to be a part of someone’s life and now it is ALL gone. It is a really weird, humbling, and sad feeling to go through someone’s belongings and throw everything away.

I have so many pictures and videos – I’ve already filled up a brand new 4 GB SD card! The only problem is that I forgot my camera at home so I can’t post any new pictures today!

I am really grateful that I have had this opportunity to help these people physically and spiritually. Being a missionary is amazing!

~Anderson elder